


you don't have any feathers

by orphan_account



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, latter days au?, repressed mormon missionary au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:27:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2643311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you know why moths fly into lights like that?” Ryan asks, stubbing his cigarette out on the wall next to Brendon’s knee. </p>
<p>Brendon shakes his head no.</p>
<p>“It’s because instinct.” Ryan sighs a little, follows Brendon’s gaze. “Their whole body is telling them to fly towards the moon. But all these city lights, and they don’t know the difference. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do. You know? And it’s wrong, and they don’t even know it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't have any feathers

**Author's Note:**

> me and avery were brainstorming about this several weeks ago (a month? two?) and i felt like it was necessary to write. will be posted in two parts, whenever i am able to write the second part you'll get it. this is an AU i'm actually super pumped about, so.
> 
> general warnings include religious themes, heresy(?), some repressed mormon shit, and dallon weekes. oh, and crying while jerking off. sorry. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> eventually nc-17, i promise im not a tease.

“My baby.” Her hand on his shoulder feels cold even through the fabric. She looks like she’ll cry. Brendon doesn’t like it when his mother cries, mostly because he feels awkward and unsure. Seeing your mother cry is always scary, because by then it means you’re old enough to know that parents cry. “I’m so proud of you.”

The feeling is warm in his chest, and he feels it the whole way, but he doesn’t know what it is, what to call it. His stomach churns. Maybe it’s just nausea.

Brendon is excited. He is. It just hasn’t kicked in much yet.

He promises to write, like he has a choice, like it’s not carefully embedded in his schedule, right between daily prayer and scripture study. His mother looks pleased, his father looks proud, and it all settles hard and cold at the bottom of his stomach.

When he walks away, he doesn’t look back, but his pressed shirt still stinks of his mother’s flowery perfume. It takes a long time for the smell to fade out.

...

Dallon is older by several years, though he doesn’t say how much. He looks genuinely excited, like this is something he’s been looking forward to. Brendon remembers him from his Thursday scripture studies at the training camp.

Brendon envies him for being excited. Envies him for looking like he knows this is where he should be.

...

Their apartment is a one-bedroom in Brooklyn, located on the third floor and with too-thin walls, but Brendon is supposed to be grateful, so he is, grateful for this opportunity, for this gift from our Lord above, thank you, thank you.

Dallon offers to take the couch, generous from head to toe while Brendon feels selfish, feels guilty, but he wordlessly puts his things in the bedroom anyways. It is not selfish to accept gifts.

On the first night, when Brendon tries to retire at 10:29, he hears hushed noises from the room on the other side of the wall, and then the unmistakable creaking and thumping of a bed and he imagines --

No. He doesn’t imagine anything. He squeezes his eyes shut and recites his schedule from memory.

...

In the mornings he wakes before the sun, says his prayers, finishes his toast in four bites with scripture in one hand, and he tries his best to enjoy companion studies but he finds Dallon to boring in the most insufferable way and the less they talk, the more peaceful it is.

And yet.

“We should take a left at this crossroads.” Dallon is pointing to a spot on the map and Brendon has to struggle to sound interested and keen. “It’s a nice neighborhood.”

And this is what he’s asked for.

He nods, barely focusing, and then Dallon opens up the book, clearing his throat pointedly. “This one’s my personal favorite.”

Brendon doesn’t have a favorite. He just nods again, finding the right page, his eyelids heavy like they’re about to fall.

This is what he’s asked for.

...

Every Monday is a preparation day and he makes note to pray twice as hard those mornings in gratitude, because he gets an excuse not to be around Dallon for an extended amount of time. He takes his time, spending an hour or two at the supermarket, pretending to mull intensely over two different flavors of microwavable sandwiches.

He still has to meet Dallon after dinnertime. They’ll start on the bottom floor of the building, working their way up. It’ll go much the same it always does. Brendon will knock and someone will answer, looking immediately like they wished they hadn’t, and Dallon will begin with, “Hi, we’re from the Church of Latter-Day Saints --”

And the door will slam. Or worse, they’ll be yelled at, swore up and down at, and Brendon will have to pray again that night for forgiveness, forgive me, forgive me, for feeling so frustrated and angry, for feeling so hopeless and wrong like this is not where he belongs.

Preparation days are his favorite days, until they’re not.

...

Brendon gets roped into laundry duty on their fourth p-day, making his way down to the first floor. The laundromat is open twenty-four hours but he only has twelve hours to his day, so he arrives at eight, feeling like he’s already wasted away his morning just by being there.

He’s separating the white button-ups from the black ties, the black suit jackets, the monotonous, colorless wardrobe of two people spreading the word of God. He’s still wearing what he’s expected, a pressed linen shirt with a tie, black trousers, down to clean dress shoes, like he’s always prepared for an interview. Or a religious conversion. Either one.

There’s only one other person in the room, someone with gangly limbs and sleep-messy brown hair, wearing a pair of too-large boxers and a t-shirt. Brendon immediately envies him for being permitted to be lazy.

And he doesn’t think much else of him. Not at all.

...

“Hi, we’re from the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, and we just want to have a few moments of your --”

The boy at the door says, “I saw you earlier.”

“-- time,” Dallon finishes like he’d never been interrupted, his smile too broad to be real, an obvious fake. Or maybe not. Brendon isn’t good at understanding those things.

Brendon nods to confirm. He doesn’t usually do a lot of talking, leaves that to Dallon, mostly, because Dallon’s conviction is stronger or his memory is better, whichever. Brendon doesn’t really have much to say. He’d mostly want to tell everyone to close the door while they still have the chance. Save a few precious souls, just not the way he’s supposed to.

“At the laundromat,” the boy clarifies, even though Brendon had already nodded that yes, yes they saw each other, and it means nothing at all.

“We live next door,” Brendon says, possibly unhelpfully, just to say anything at all.

Dallon’s smile hasn’t wavered at all. “We just want to talk to you about our --”

“Are you guys, like, Mormons?”

Brendon can’t help but laugh, a little, just because of how utterly bored the guy looks, like he can’t be bothered to entertain them, not even for a second. “Yes.” He points to his name tag. Elder Urie, it says, The Church of Latter-Day Saints. “Mormons.”

Dallon’s smile starts to look strained, the way it gets when a potential newcomer starts asking a lot of dumb questions and Dallon can tell this one is just messing with them. “If you just have a few moments of spare time...”

“I don’t, actually.” The boy shows his palms, displaying empty hands. “All out of spare time.” And then he closes the door. Just like that.

Brendon still finds himself smiling.

...

Every Friday night is the same when Brendon is closing his eyes, head twisting back onto the pillow, trying to go to sleep because he must, because his schedule is strict and is the best way for him to get closer to God, closer to the cause, closer to finally understanding why he’s here and what he’s doing and.

But he can’t sleep because the walls are too thin, the walls are too thin and he can hear every gasp and every stuttered movement and everything, right down to the heavy breathing, the way the sheets rustle.

He doesn’t touch himself but he has to press his fingernails into his palms, dig in until it hurts, bite down on the inside of his cheek until tears spring to his eyes because he cannot, he cannot.

He thinks that God sent this to punish him for not being excited about his mission. He thinks this is some kind of retribution for his sin.

He prays himself to sleep, lips mouthing the words and eyes shut and his ears roaring with rushing blood, because this is his punishment and he only wants to say sorry, only wants to say he’s sorry for not being good, for not being full of faith. He’ll do anything if this could just stop.

...

The next time he sees the boy at the laundromat, it takes everything in him not to stare, because now he has a face to the sounds, an actual target for every night he lies awake hardly able to move and paralyzed with anger at himself and God above for punishing him.

But it doesn’t help, his efforts, because he gets a tap on the shoulder while he’s separating his whites, and a distinct, “Hey, neighbor.”

Brendon turns and smiles a half-beat too late. “Hi.” He pauses, then adds a little too late, “Have you been thinking about maybe converting to --”

He waves Brendon off with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t you ever get tired of that spiel?”

Every day, Brendon wants to say, but he smiles sunnily and says, “No, sir, it’s my job.”

“Job,” the boy repeats, and he might be smiling, just a little, just a quirk of the lips. “Are you getting paid?”

“No, sir. Just spreading the word of God.” It’s a rehearsed play, one he’s learned well. He practically recites the words along with his scripture studies in the mornings.

“That sounds boring.” Before Brendon can try to say that it isn’t, no, sir, it really isn’t, the boy says, “What’s your name?”

“Brendon.” If they’re going to be neighbors, he supposes it can’t hurt to know each other. The guide doesn’t say he can’t make friends. Just says he can’t make friends with women.

“Ryan.”

And now he has a name to the noises, too.

...

Over the morning breakfast Dallon says, with a perpetual frown on his face, “We’ve been here two months and nothing’s happened yet.”

Brendon says nothing. He’s in no position to help Dallon with discouragement of faith. He’s already praying twice as hard in the mornings and nights, trying to make up for all his doubts and sinner thoughts.

“I thought...” Dallon stops. “We’d really be making a difference. You know? Finding out more about ourselves. Helping other people.”

For some reason Brendon’s food sticks to the roof of his mouth, clamping his jaw shut. He can’t speak even if he’d want to. Even if he had anything to say.

Dallon closes his eyes and Brendon can make out the prayer that forms on his lips, mouthed in a breathy whisper. Already apologizing for straying from faith. Already.

Brendon feels like he’s never going to be able to apologize enough.

...

10:46 on a Sunday and he still can’t find it in himself to fall asleep. It’s quiet next door. It’s been quiet for some time, and he’s grateful for it. Grateful for the sleep, the peaceful quiet, tranquility. He has enough going on. Finding himself and all.

Brendon wanders out of the bedroom, careful to tiptoe quietly as to not wake up Dallon, stepping outside of the apartment door and into the hallway, lit by fluorescent, artificial light. He’s surprised to find Ryan sitting there, his back against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Ryan looks up at him, a small smile flickering on his lips.

“Are you allowed to smoke here?” Brendon asks, stupidly.

“No. But they can’t tell it’s me.” He sucks in, the cherry glowing red. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed by 9?”

“10:30,” Brendon corrects, almost on reflex, automatically. “Can’t sleep.” Is it a sin not to follow the schedule? He doesn’t know. He knows that he’s not doing what he’s supposed to do, but he feels like he’s been helplessly floundering around for months now, not sure of where he’s going, what he’s going to do when he gets there.

He slides down the wall until he’s kneeling beside Ryan, and from this vantage point the hallway and the door look bigger. Something bigger than him and his little crises.

It’s quiet for some time. Brendon keeps watching the moth that flies repeatedly into one of the lights in the hallway, a deranged autopilot, not hitting the right destination.

“Do you know why moths fly into lights like that?” Ryan asks, stubbing his cigarette out on the wall next to Brendon’s knee.

Brendon shakes his head no.

“It’s because instinct.” Ryan sighs a little, follows Brendon’s gaze. “Their whole body is telling them to fly towards the moon. But all these city lights, and they don’t know the difference. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do. You know? And it’s wrong, and they don’t even know it.”

Brendon doesn’t want to think about that. He nods and swallows down the lump forming at the bottom of his throat. The moth keeps slamming itself into the light, and it’s so quiet that Brendon can hear the muffled sound of impact.

Ryan rises to his feet, fishing a key out of his pocket. “Good luck with getting to sleep.”

Brendon still can’t say anything, still doesn’t trust his voice, so he just smiles. And that seems like it’s enough. As it should be.

...

Brendon is not listening, he is not listening, it’s just that the walls paper-thin and the sounds are --

He is not listening. They just beg to be heard. Like they need an audience. And it’s a girl and her voice is soft and breathless and he doesn’t even listen to her, can’t even hear her, because Ryan, and he knows it now to be Ryan, and the sounds he makes and the thud of the headboard, a rhythmic sound, like a heartbeat.

Brendon bites down on his lip, knows he’ll draw blood, knows he will, and his treacherous body betraying him, blood rushing from his brain down to his.

God is always watching him, God always knows, God can sense it, he’ll know, he’ll know, just like he knows when Brendon hates his family and hates his church and hates everything around him because he can’t keep it all inside.

Brendon’s hand shoots down and he has to do this quickly, has to, before his brain catches up. He’s hard, rock hard already, his body way ahead of himself, and every second that he doesn’t touch himself is agonizing, like he’s waiting for permission for something that he’ll never be permitted to do.

Brendon gets a hand inside his boxers and wants to get it over with, just so he doesn’t have to think too much about it, his hand closed in a tight fist and it feels like. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Doesn’t God have better things to do than to watch him?

On the other side of the wall Ryan makes this sound, and Brendon can’t pinpoint what it is, how to describe it, but he squeezes his eyes shut and holds his breath and then he’s coming all over his fist and his boxers, his cheeks wet. He hadn’t cried. He’d promised himself.

He whimpers, worrying the flesh of his bottom lip, sweat slicked on his brow, his come drying sticky on his fingers.

On the other side of the wall, everything goes quiet. Brendon is left staring at the popcorn ceiling, tracing patterns in it with his eyes, feeling his whole existence shriveling up into nothing, nothing at all.

He doesn’t cry. He swallows down the feeling, the guilt and the shame and the humiliation, like his parents are going to know, like God will tell them and he’ll be kicked out, he’ll be sent home, the church will disown him and his family --

He buries his face into his pillow and wills his heart to slow down.

...

Nothing is different the next day. Dallon still reads aloud during companion study like nothing changed, nothing at all, and Brendon stares at the page and focuses on every word too much and maybe it doesn’t feel any different because God wasn’t paying attention. Had better things to do.

Dallon says, “We have a meeting with the family on King.”

Brendon nods as if he knows who Dallon is talking about. “Okay.”

“Things are looking up for us.” Dallon smiles like he means it, like this is the start of something. Finally their purpose being revealed to them. God telling them this is what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re in the right place.

It doesn’t feel any better.

...

When he writes home to his family, he writes that things are good. That he knows this is what God intended for him. He feels shaky and jittery, everything in his chest feeling like rising horror, but in his letters, he makes it sound like the returned missionaries did at the camp. An awakening. A purpose.

He knows lying is a sin, he knows it is, but it can’t be much worse than his other sins. He promises himself he won’t listen anymore. He won’t let it happen again.

...

Brendon opens the door during his individual scripture study to find Ryan, and that feels like a joke, except no one’s laughing. Ryan is holding a couple envelopes, his eyebrow quirked, and he says, “These got delivered to my door. So.”

Brendon takes them wordlessly. They’re all addressed to ‘Elder Urie,’ and the stamp is from Salt Lake. Figures.

“Um,” he says eloquently. “Thanks.”

Ryan nods. “Are those from your parents?”

“Yeah.” Elder Urie. Like they didn’t give him a name when he was born, like they didn’t call after him ‘we’ll miss you, Brendon’ after he started towards the security gates. He wonders if that’s just what they have to call him.

“Oh.” The silence shouldn’t feel awkward, but it is. Brendon can’t stop thinking about his sins. Ryan says, “Where’s the other one?”

“It’s p day,” he says, almost automatically, then feels stupid. “Preparation day. We have a day off to get food. And stuff. So he’s at the store.”

Ryan half-smirks, looking like he wants to say something insulting but clearly thinking better of it. “Are you allowed to spend any time apart?” He doesn’t ask for an invitation inside but steps in anyways. Brendon doesn’t stop him because he’s still trying to get his thoughts to catch up with his body.

“Just on p days. Until 6.” He feels nervous, on edge, trying to remember if it was easy to talk to Ryan before. “Then we have to go back out and proselytize.”

Ryan does laugh at that. “Does it ever get boring?”

Yes. “No.” Brendon smiles. “We’re spreading the word of God. It doesn’t feel boring if it’s what you want to be doing.”

“And you always have to dress like that.” Ryan gestures to Brendon’s clothing, his black trousers, pressed white shirt, gray tie. “Every single day. With the name tag, and everything.”

Brendon presses his lips together. “Why are you asking all this?”

“Maybe I want to convert.”

“You don’t.”

Ryan’s lips curve up. “Maybe I’m just taking an interest in you.”

“Why?” Brendon is starting to regret letting Ryan come inside, starting to regret letting Ryan within ten feet of him. His flesh still burns with the memory.

“Because,” Ryan says, stopping to fish something out of his pockets, “you look fucking miserable.” He holds out a pair of headphones and an iPod. “Here.”

“I can’t have that,” Brendon says on auto-pilot, but still he takes it. “I can’t listen to music that isn’t by the Church.”

“There’s Christian music on there,” Ryan argues.

“Doesn’t matter. Can’t.”

Ryan rolls his shoulders, looking exasperated. “I already knew you can’t have it. I did some research.” Before Brendon can open his mouth to say anything, Ryan continues, “But, I’m giving it to you anyway. You look like you’re dead all the time.”

Brendon flushes red. Is it always that obvious to the people that they try to convert? Like they take one look at him, at the misery clearly etched on his face, and decide that no, no, the LDS Church is not for them? Embarrassment makes his stomach churn. Maybe it’s his fault they haven’t done much saving.

“Okay,” is all he says, small and quiet. “Thanks.” It’s a sin, but how much of one? Brendon would rather this small one than all the bigger ones. His misery included.

“Just give it back to me before you go back home.”

That just makes Brendon think that he still has so much more time left before he has to go home. Still a year-and-a-half worth of paper-thin walls.

“Yeah.” Brendon feels awkward, like he doesn’t know what else to say, but he’s full of words, full of questions and no answers or solutions. Ryan keeps looking at him and Brendon envies him, suddenly, envies the way he can exist without apologizing for it.

Before Ryan can pass through the doorway again, Brendon summons up a little courage and says, “Do you believe in God?”

Ryan stops, a hand stilling on the doorframe. “I guess not. I just don’t ever think about it.”

“You don’t think about it,” Brendon repeats, and he wants to form it as a question but his voice won’t do the inflection. He can’t imagine not thinking about it. God is all he thinks about, God’s will, God’s judgment, oh, thank God for this food we are about to eat, for this earth, for this suit and tie.

“So you do, then?” Ryan asks, and Brendon frowns. “Believe in God, I mean,” he clarifies.

It’s a ridiculous question. “Of course I do.” He does. He must, because if not, then what is this all for? What has he been doing with his whole miserable existence? “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Ryan hums a little. “Guess not.” He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, but it does matter. Brendon’s faith, his conviction, everything that has led him here, it has to matter, it has to mean something.

Before Brendon can say anything else -- and what would he say, what would he say to all this? -- Ryan waves a hand and says, “Enjoy the music.” He doesn’t pause this time at the door frame, just disappears down the hall, and if Brendon stares after him a little, it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean a damn thing.


End file.
